Times Square bomb suspect arrested

Staff and wire reports

Published
2:42 am EDT, Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Police vehicles fill a street early Tuesday morning May 4, 2010 as they search a home the center of the block in Bridgeport Conn. An arrest in the Times Square bombing was made at Kennedy Airport in New York and local, federal and state officials are searching a residence in Bridgeport. less

Police vehicles fill a street early Tuesday morning May 4, 2010 as they search a home the center of the block in Bridgeport Conn. An arrest in the Times Square bombing was made at Kennedy Airport in New ... more

Photo: Douglas Healey, AP

Photo: Douglas Healey, AP

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Police vehicles fill a street early Tuesday morning May 4, 2010 as they search a home the center of the block in Bridgeport Conn. An arrest in the Times Square bombing was made at Kennedy Airport in New York and local, federal and state officials are searching a residence in Bridgeport. less

Police vehicles fill a street early Tuesday morning May 4, 2010 as they search a home the center of the block in Bridgeport Conn. An arrest in the Times Square bombing was made at Kennedy Airport in New ... more

Photo: Douglas Healey, AP

Times Square bomb suspect arrested

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A law enforcement official says a suspect in last weekend's failed car bomb attack on Times Square has been taken into custody while trying to leave the country, the Associated Press reported early Tuesday.

Shahzad, of Pakistani descent who recently traveled to Pakistan, paid cash weeks ago for the SUV parked in Times Square on Saturday, officials said. It was found rigged with a crude propane-and-gasoline bomb and had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks.

Several news outlets reported that the sale of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder was negotiated over Craigslist and that the buyer paid between $1,300 in cash to a woman identified by the Hartford Courant as Peggy Colas, a 19-year-old college student from Bridgeport, before driving it away from a shopping mall. Colas also listed the car on the NothingButCars.net website.

The parking lot outside State Police Troop G headquarters in Bridgeport was packed with police cars early Tuesday, and state and federal authorities were swarming the building. News crews from local and national media outlets were camped out in the area near the barracks.

As the focus of the probe appeared to center on Connecticut, a team of investigators continued to work out of the FBI offices in Bridgeport Monday night. FBI agents, State Police, New York City, Bridgeport and Trumbull police were assembled beginning late Saturday night and have been chasing down leads since then. They have conducted several interviews in Bridgeport, Stratford and Norwalk, a source told the Connecticut Post.

The Pathfinder at the heart of the investigation originally came from a Bridgeport used car business, the owner of the company told the Connecticut Post on Monday. Thomas Manis Jr., owner of Thomas-Anthony Auto Sales, on Boston Avenue, said he believed he sold the car six years ago, but he did not remember the identity of the buyer.

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Manis handed over records of two 2004 sales to Bridgeport-area buyers to the three members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force who showed up at his Monroe home at 6:45 a.m. Sunday and scoured his sales records for hours -- a tedious task without a name or vehicle identification number.

They had tracked him down, he said, because the 1993 Pathfinder still carried a logo sticker from his dealership on its tailgate.

Whoever bought it back then had sold it long before the bombing attempt, he said the state Department of Motor Vehicles told the task force members in his presence.

On Sunday, investigators followed leads to an auto parts junkyard in Stratford's Lordship section Sunday.

The Connecticut license plate on the explosives-packed SUV had been taken from a local Ford pickup truck recently sent for repair to Kramer's Used Auto Parts at 11 Old South Ave. The Ford F-150 from which the license plate was taken was last registered to a Bridgeport man who lives on Highland Avenue.

The man, identified by sources as Elmo Jones, could not be reached for comment.

Federal, New York state and New York City investigators went to the Norwalk home of Wayne LeBlanc, the owner of Kramer's, early Sunday and his business, said Wayne's father, Norman LeBlanc.

Norm LeBlanc said that his son had been subpoenaed to appear in court in New York Monday but he did not know why.

The pickup truck was in his son's yard for repairs, he said, unsure how long it had been there or what needed to be fixed.

He said the vehicle was parked in a portion of Kramer's yard that was not visible from the office, and the business "has a lot of problems with theft."

In New York, police and the FBI were examining hundreds of hours of video from around the area and wanted to speak with a man in his 40s who was videotaped shedding his shirt near the Pathfinder.

The video shows the man slipping down Shubert Alley and taking off his shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he looks back in the direction of the smoking vehicle and puts the first shirt in a bag.

In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Saturday's attempted bombing was a terrorist act.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who earlier in the day refused to classify the incident as terrorism, said the bomber intended to spread fear across New York and said investigators had some good leads in addition to the videotape that was released Sunday.

Investigators had not ruled out a range of possible motives, and federal officials said they hadn't narrowed down whether the bomber was homegrown or foreign.

Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball" and sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with Broadway theaters and restaurants and full of people out on a Saturday night.

The SUV was captured on video crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m. Saturday. A vendor pointed out the Pathfinder to an officer about two minutes later. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening, was shut down for 10 hours.

The explosive device had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Staff writer Noelle Frampton and the Associated Press contributed to this report.